The Big Life Questions Show

Show Notes

We take a detour from politics to answer all questions (well, some questions) about March Madness

1.00 The Attraction of March Madness

3.20 Why Are There 68 Teams Picked for the Tournament?

12.00 Chris links Seeding to Final Four Appearances

14.15 Gonzaga

17.25 Your Team Loses, But Then It's Spring

18.40 Big Life Questions Show Announcement

Chris, whose father was an astronaut (or so he told his friends), provides expert analysis of the meaning of the Mars landing

Video Link to Mars Landing

Mars Landing

0.30 A Brief History of Space Travel

2.50 The Mars Landing

6.30 Is there life on other planets?

10.20 Nation-States Competing in space

14.40 Human nature is to pursue discovery

19.00 Do we need to send humans into space?

22.00 The Planet B Fallacy

Here we survey the landscape of American politics for this year.

0.40 Predictions for the Biden Administration

2.15 The Republican Party is in a pickle

9.00 College student debt

11.30 Biden and the Trump drama

11.50 Texas and Ted Cruz

17.55 Andrew Cuomo

22.30 Mitch McConnell 

This episode's guest, Frank Cutitta, tells Chris and Doug his incredible story of spending more than three months in the hospital with COVID last year -- including 40 days in an induced coma -- and what he learned about our healthcare system.

1.15 Our Guest Intro

2.00 40 Days in a Coma

15.10 Caregiver Stress & Loneliness

20.15 The Anonymity of the Mask

21.45 Rehab

27.30 How Frank is doing now

29.15 Last Rites Twice

35.00 I'm Not My Healthcare Dashboard

Show Notes

We discuss if and how Biden can get to the Unity that he and some Republicans keep talking about.

0.45 Chris answers the question

3.15 American popular opinion favors government intervention

4.55 Oppositional defiance disorder

6.45 The anti-democracy movement

11.45 What Biden has going for himself

13.45 Marjorie Taylor Greene

15.45 Republican money sources drying up

Show Notes

1.40 How much extremism there really is

4.30 Planned terrorists, Internet Stars and Insurrection Tourists

6.45 The Republican Party

9.40 Does the Republican Party need Trump?

10.20 When Chris Voted for a Republican

16.30 Will the Republicans ever abandon Trump?

18.20 The Right Wing Extremists Speak for Themselves

Show Notes

Here we contemplate Trump's 2nd impeachment trial. He was going for 3, but he got kicked out of office. 

1.10 Doug's dim view of the Republicans

3.45 What's different about this impeachment trial?

5.30 Will Trump stay relevant politically?

9.30 Trump's Greatest Accomplishment

10.45 The delay of the trial

12.15 Will the Republican Party split in two?

14.15 The Republicans and The Whigs

Show Notes

We contemplate the state of the world, such as it is, potential violence around the Inauguration, the 2nd amendment and right wing extremists. 

0.40 Wash DC becomes a police state

1.50 Arming the Extreme Right

3.40 Is Unity the Next Step, Really ?

6.30 Chris reads crazy-people posts from Parler

14.00 Accommodating the white supremacists seems like a very bad idea

18.10 The 2nd amendment & false equivalency 

Show Notes

We discuss potential consequences for Trump and his enablers

0.30 A quick review of Trump's insurrection program

4.00 A second impeachment?

4.50 The Trump Family & Friends Pre-Rally Party

9.00 Whatever happened to individual responsibility?

13.20 Should Trump be prosecuted?

15.10 What about Trump's enablers?

18.10 What options does the Trump crowd have left?

27.10 Should we worry about riling up the Trump base?

Show Notes

We use some key stats to do a brief re-cap of the mess that was 2020- but, overall, we definitely recommend turning the page to 2021.

0.30 Doug's Netflix recommendation

1.00 The Covid Pandemic, Again

8.50 Food Lines & Economic Disaster

12.00 Absentee and Mail In Ballots

15.40 Many Americans lack high speed internet

16.10 Biden's Low Hanging Fruit

18.00 Will Trump run in 2024?

19.30 The Demise of Local Newspapers